RainTaxi magazine has a great review of Place So Foreign in its winter 2003 ish:

Doctorow embeds exposition in the action and dialogue, making his fiction fun to read–in other words, you don’t have to slog through idle descriptions of technology or mythical family trees. When the “robutler” in the title story affixes its “electrode fingertips” to the narrator’s temples to “juice” them and clear away his headache, the incident passes so quickly that it doesn’t seem too cute or campy. The author’s minimalist style is a refreshing change from the meticulous, heavy-handed prose of classic fantasy and SF novels, aptly conveying what it might feel like to have your temples juiced.